


alpha, omega

by leiascully



Category: House M.D.
Genre: Community: smut_tuesdays, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-06-20
Updated: 2007-06-20
Packaged: 2017-10-03 06:20:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And then, of course, there was knowing it was the last time, which made her heart ache.</p>
            </blockquote>





	alpha, omega

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: post-series  
> A/N: Extremely sad for a Smut Tuesday.  
> Disclaimer: _House M.D._ and all related characters are the property of Shore Z, Bad Hat Harry, and Fox. No profit is made from this work and no infringement is intended.

The last time was slow and painful. Not the actual mechanics of it – their bodies were so familiar to each other that the stretch to accommodate him was nothing, and they knew how to work around his leg – but they had new aches to mark their advancing years. They moved together and her elbow twinged. She stroked his back and he rolled his head to relieve a crick in his neck. It wasn't the way it had been in college, when they'd used their bodies with abandon.

And then, of course, there was knowing it was the last time, which made her heart ache.

He had refused to die in the hospital.

"But we can care for you here," she'd argued, and Wilson had argued.   
"Nothing you can do here that you couldn't do at home," he said. "Dope me up and let me go."

So they had. They'd wheeled him out and taken him back to his apartment, and she and Wilson took shifts when the nurse went home, and after a few days when the nurse quit.

"Why?" she asked, touching his brow.  
"Wanna haunt this place," he'd gritted out, fighting the pain. "Hospital'd be too frustrating. Ghosts can't shout."  
"I bet you'd manage," she said, going out of the room and touching her fingertips to her damp eyes.

They were on their sides in the bed. He was too weak for anything else, in too much pain to sit up for long. He could hobble to the bathroom or the kitchen and back, but he was deteriorating fast. She was waiting for the day his dignity took over and she found the door locked against her and a note wedged under the peephole.

"Remember," she had said. "You were my first." It was a sentimental night. They had gone through a photo album. He was restless in bed and she scooted closer and pulled his head into her lap, her fingers rubbing at his scalp.  
"Want to be my last?" he had teased, raising an eyebrow, almost himself for a moment.  
"We shouldn't," she had said.   
"Denying a dying man his last wish? Heartless." The gleam in his eye had dulled, but it was there.

So she had undressed him carefully, and dropped her own clothes on top of his, and had lain with him for more than an hour, just touching him. They kissed, lingeringly, like young lovers on a summer evening with the world spread out before them. It took him a long time to firm under her hands: that was to be expected. Too many painkillers, too little liver function. But she knew how to coax him, and who knew if he hadn't bribed Viagra out of someone? He was still a man to be reckoned with, and he nudged against her insistently. They fitted together as well as they always had. He held her leg hooked over his hip and she braced her heel behind his thighs. He ran his hands over her ribs, touching her in all the right spots. She cried the whole time, pushing against him, saving him the effort of moving. It was right and too wrong. Her heart burned in her chest and her ribs ached with sobbing. He kissed her tears and slid against her until she gasped, the pleasure a dull throb through her.

He didn't come at all, too far gone for his body to spare that kind of energy.

"Cuddy," he said.  
She said nothing at all, just wept into his shoulder, furious with herself for doing it. But he just touched her hair, kissed her forehead, held her against him, and it wasn't enough, but it was what they had left.

She woke the next morning and kissed his shoulder while he slept. But he was clever. There was a departmental meeting and Wilson found the door bolted, notes for both of them pushed through the crack. When they got the door broken down, House was on the couch, a syringe on the floor beside him. It was almost a relief, but she cried anyway, when she got home.

He had left her the piano. She curled around her own bones in her big empty bed and couldn't remember life before him.


End file.
